


Leash

by Peach_oniisan



Category: DRAMAtical Murder - All Media Types
Genre: Blood and Violence, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Schrödinger's Romance, Yakuza
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-05
Updated: 2015-07-05
Packaged: 2018-04-07 17:13:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4271394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peach_oniisan/pseuds/Peach_oniisan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The cracks on his façade became wide enough for the black, glistening scales to show.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leash

Penance was not always a synonym for death, Virus had told him. It didn’t have to be.

Before anything else, they were yakuza; they had their pride, their honour, their codes of chivalry. Whenever possible, hands were to be kept clean. For the trouble it would bring them, at the very least, the blood of friends and foes alike was precious and not meant to be wasted.

“Our dearest Yowamushi-san should know.”

Isn’t this what gave him the confidence to betray them in the first place? The firm belief that his miserable life could be spared?

Virus had come wearing a cashmere jacket and his most harmless smile, eyes positively gleaming with mirth behind their thick frames. We are not heartless, he had said, offering his empty palm to the wretch shivering before him. Submit before the rest of the syndicate is alerted and we will go easy on our reports. You should be able to salvage your career with only a few fingers missing and your tongue mostly intact.

The man had looked back at them with the bewildered stare of a trapped rat; terrified, visceral and twice as vile in his sudden lack of courage. His hand rose to wipe at a split lip and he took another step back. His frantic heartbeat was practically audible, even above the aggressive bass of the music still pulsing behind them. The delirious colour palette of the club lights only served to accentuate the misery painted over his prematurely aging features; lines of worry deepening between his brows in the wake of inevitable judgement.

A bottom rank member of the yakuza, caught in the act of selling information that wasn’t his, now trapped at the end of the alley and the end of his wit. Virus’s mouth curled up and next to him, Trip could barely hold in a snicker. The two of them exchanged a wordless glance:

_Pathetic._

No help would come for those whose value was less than nothing.

The cold metal in his hand gave the man reassurance, however, so instead of lowering the gun, he raised it, tears welling up in his eyes as he choked back something none of them heard.

Virus only managed to read a few syllables on foaming, trembling lips:

_“…your dog…”_

The words hung in the stale night air.

Hands emerging from his pockets, Trip spat out his gum and his muscles tensed. At age 19, he had barely escaped adolescence and yet, between the two of them, he was the one to embrace carelessness first; the one to laugh at the face of pain as he jumped into fights with no hesitation.

That childish delight never left him, not when he grounded bones to dust nor when he crushed lives under his designer heels. He would look up from the carnage and lick the blood off his knuckles, and Virus would smile back. Trip _was_ a dog; a glorious beast, bred for a purpose, and he was at his most beautiful when dressed in nothing but flickering neon light and the scent of flesh torn asunder.  

Their prey tonight was determined to bite back, however, and the atmosphere had shifted under the weight of the hubris. Virus had wanted to shout -for Trip to not move, to not scare the desperate animal any further- but his partner, already drunk on a boiling rage, had neither obedience nor stoicism spare to conceal his bare teeth. Once he had noticed the direction of the barrel - _his own chest, between the third and second rib_ \- Trip was done with warnings.

_Idiot._

A strangled cry burned through his eardrums and Virus was certain he heard it louder than the gunshot. There was nothing to be done, no choice to be made in that space of time, and yet Virus chose to move. To get in the way of fire and cold, painful despair.  

He didn’t see his left arm move or grab Trip’s shirt, only the shapes around him bleeding into each other, as his glasses were violently shaken off.

Time stopped amidst smoke and vertigo, and for a few seconds Virus couldn’t tell if he was still standing. He tasted the air in his lungs and counted his breaths, until grey gave way to colour again and he could force his spine upright.

“You shouldn’t have done that…”

When he spoke, his voice rumbled with deep, seething resentment. It cut through the fraudulent smiles, through the honeyed words and the reassuring tone he liked to wear, until the cracks on his façade became wide enough for the black, glistening scales to show.

He had heard his glasses shatter, but didn’t bother reaching for them. A few long strides were enough to close the distance between himself and the blurry mass that was this - _fucking_ _idiot-_  cowering adversary. A crude snap, a single practiced move and the man’s arm was twisted into an angle it was never meant to go.

 “Yowamushi-san…?”

…are you really that tired of living? Virus wanted to ask, but the taste of charred meat and gunpowder blocked his throat. The creature before him - _father of three, information broker, traitor_ \- was still squirming, but that didn’t make him any less dead. There was no reason to pretend otherwise. He had only been allowed one mistake, and had taken his chances, forgetting that a single bullet could at best pierce one heart.

There would never be enough time for a second one.

The screaming didn’t register and neither did the pain; only the satisfying crunch of bones being rearranged. The gun lied long forgotten on the ground and Virus took his time to break each and every finger, swallow every cry, before dashing the man’s face against the wall -again and again and again.

Virus heaved and panted, fangs naked behind lewd wet lips as he devoured his victim, one piece at a time. There was no room for interference, for mercy, for a quick execution; not when the lust gripping at his insides had him aroused beyond reason and sanity.

The sight was revolting.

 _Look at what you made me do_.

Curses rose in his throat along with bile, but nothing came over his swollen tongue. He pushed himself up, out of breath and barely sated, staring down at the featureless thing lying still at his feet. Neither of them looked human.

“I’m bleeding, aren’t I…?” he said and his eyes were suddenly full of needles, as the contours of Trip’s rapidly approaching shape began to fall apart. Just beneath his collar, a gorgeous crimson was coming into bloom. With the force of adrenaline finally drained, his legs gave in and he found himself sinking into the sweet, dark mire of unconsciousness.

 _Do you love Trip?_ a dying stranger would ask him, years later.

“…love?”

Virus blinks and his smile falters. He samples the word in his mouth and it’s easy to tell that he doesn’t like the taste. Not in the slightest. Part of him wishes to reply with a simple “no” and end the conversation there, but with life seeping out of the tortured body across from him, a want for honesty swells in his chest and his thoughts unfold on their own:

“What kind of love are you even asking about, Nanashi-san? Eros? Philia? Burning desire or unconditional selflessness? Dependence? Indulgence? Attachment?”

False gaiety slips between these words and his voice carries something of his inner frozen wasteland. His unnatural eyes continue to examine the patchwork of bruises on his captive's face -one hand lifting a cup of tea, while the other leans to tuck away a strand of matted black hair. It’s rather clear by then that he is talking to himself.  

“Trip has his place in my life, but love is not the word for it. With thousands of years’ worth of baggage, expectations and hidden meanings, it is too illusive a term for someone who has simply always been there.

“Do I ‘love’ Trip? No,” he says with a scoff and a raised eyebrow, “and I’m more than certain he doesn’t ‘love’ me either.

“We do have a history, though. We have shared the bitter taste of poison. We have seen each other at our most vulnerable and sustained mutual scars.

“He is simply someone who compliments my existence.

“I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

No imbeciles ever did. And everyone outside them was an imbecile.

 _Would you take a bullet for him?_ There is nothing endearing about the broken, breathless throes of the dying woman, but Virus’s face lights up with a spark of amusement. He smooths out a crease in the lapel of his suit, close to the spot where the shoulder bone bonds to muscle.

“Considering our line of work, Nanashi-san, what is it that makes you think I haven’t taken one already?”

He wears her pain like a perfume, sitting only a few feet away while the light fades from her eyes. Beneath his clothes, a scar rests close to where his heart should be and he takes a sip of tea, safe in the knowledge that his chest is empty. A knife once plunged into his ivory flesh and found nothing but black serpents writhing inside.

 _I will murder you_ , she says after spitting out a mouthful of blood, _and take him off your hands. I will murder you and wear your skin._

The smile he gifts her over the rim of his cup would put angels to shame.

“Wear it like the finest veil and dance around before him. My skin will be the most exquisite thing to ever hang from your sad carcass.”

**Author's Note:**

> Note that "Yowamushi" and "Nanashi" are not real names. They translate to "Coward" and "Nameless," respectively and are amongst the many nicknames Virus tends to assign to people whose humanity he doesn't deem worth acknowledging.
> 
> This story was born out of different interactions in my old roleplaying blog, so if you've seen me around on tumblr it might seem familiar. There might be a part two (｡･ω･｡)ﾉ♡


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